3 hours ago, Joseph McBride said:

My column on THIRTEEN DAYS in Irish America magazine (April/May 2001)

is reprinted in my 2017 book collection TWO CHEERS

FOR HOLLYWOOD: JOSEPH MCBRIDE ON MOVIES

(Berkeley, Hightower Press), including this introduction:

 

Eyeball to Eyeball: JFK vs. the Joint Chiefs in Thirteen Days

I was the film columnist for Irish America magazine for three years, and it was a mostly enjoyable outlet, allowing me to cover both new and classic films on Irish subjects and issues surrounding the movies’ depiction of our ethnic group. But this column on the 2000 film Thirteen Days, published in the April/May 2001 issue, shortly after George W. Bush became “president,” caused an uproar at the magazine. My bio under the column  about this film about the Cuban Missile Crisis noted that I had been a volunteer in John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary campaign. For many years I had been working on a book dealing with the president’s assassination. The magazine’s editor, Patricia Harty, had been a guest of President Bill Clinton in the Lincoln Bedroom, and after Bush moved into the White House, she expressed a hope in the magazine that he also would invite her to stay overnight. My negative comparison in the column between Bush and President John F. Kennedy, suggesting that we might not be here if Bush had been president instead of JFK during the Missile Crisis, did not go down well at the magazine in the tense days following the stolen 2000 election.

I also managed to express some of my views on the assassination, its causes, and JFK aide Kenneth O’Donnell, who is played by the film’s star, Kevin Costner. Further research for my 2013 book Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit convinced me that O’Donnell was disloyal to JFK. He was about to be fired for corruption upon the completion of the Texas trip and was an inside man in the White House performing vital tasks for the conspiracy; he also lied to the Warren Commission about the sources of the shots. There were rumors that O’Donnell’s son Kevin had helped finance Thirteen Days, but those were not proven at the time of the film’s release, so I went along with the editor cutting that suggestive piece of background information. The film gives an absurdly hagiographic portrait of Kennedy’s special assistant and appointments secretary, who actually played only a minor role in the crisis; JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen described Thirteen Days as “Kenny O’Donnell saving the world.” It later emerged that this distorted focus was indeed due in part to Kevin’s involvement in the financing. According to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, “His son Kevin, an internet tycoon, helped bankroll a buyout of Beacon Entertainment, which made the movie, and appears to have been the partial inspiration for promoting his father -- played by Kevin Costner -- to the role of the ‘ordinary Joe’ hero audiences identify with.” O’Donnell’s daughter Helen was more forthright in taking credit for two books (published in 1998 and 2015) intended to rehabilitate her father’s reputation.

Another element of my Thirteen Days column the editor wanted to change was my insistence on putting quotes around “president” before Bush’s name, since I don’t believe he was ever president of the United States, only an unelected usurper. Somehow I won that battle, referring to him as “our new non-elected ‘president’ George W. Bush,” but she refused to let me refer to General Curtis LeMay as a “madman,” a judgment I believe is abundantly warranted. I knew my days as the magazine’s film columnist were numbered because of these fundamental political disagreements, so a few months later I resigned. But it was worth it to express my revisionist views on these controversial matters in Irish America. A lawyer I know who worked for the U.S. government told me at the time, “I can’t believe you got that printed.”

 

****

 

 

 

On the morning of Saturday, October 20, 1962, I was in a station wagon with my family en route to Milwaukee's General Mitchell Field to hear President John F. Kennedy make a campaign speech for Democratic congressional candidates. As we moved slowly in a long line of cars to the airport, the radio reported that JFK had come down with a "slight cold" in Chicago and was returning directly to Washington. We didn't know then that the Cuban Missile Crisis was reaching its boiling point.

 

Even after Kennedy revealed in a television address two days later that the U.S. and the USSR were staring each other down over nuclear missiles in Cuba, I don't recall being worried about the possibility of world annihilation. As a devout Catholic boy, I was mostly concerned that the president had lied to us. My naïveté over what the French call a "cold diplomatique" is a measure of how far we've come since that more innocent era; today we tend to assume the president is lying unless we can be convinced otherwise.

 

The stirring new film about the Missile Crisis, Thirteen Days, can't help seeming somewhat old-fashioned in stressing the importance of thoughtful presidential leadership. The crisis actually had two heroes: President Kennedy and Soviet Chairman Nikita S. Khrushchev. Their prior recklessness over Cuba precipitated the crisis, but in the end both had the wisdom to save the world from destruction. Khrushchev is not depicted in Thirteen Days, but he is a powerful off-screen presence. In the 1974 TV movie on the crisis, The Missiles of October, he is memorably played by Howard da Silva.

 

Missiles is more a chamber play than a realistic recreation, but it works superbly on those terms while thereby avoiding the pitfalls of impersonating famous characters. Surprisingly, so does the far more elaborately produced Thirteen Days, which boasts an extraordinarily fine performance by Bruce Greenwood as JFK. Greenwood captures Kennedy’s body language and the timbre of his voice while avoiding the usual caricature. Most importantly, Greenwood conveys the thoughtfulness and prudence that enabled Kennedy to resist the pressures of his Joint Chiefs of Staff to escalate the crisis by attacking Cuba. Thirteen Days is unexpectedly timely now, since "thoughtfulness and prudence" are not words that spring to mind in discussing our new non-elected "president" George W. Bush.

 

Steven Culp smoothly impersonates Robert F. Kennedy in Thirteen Days, although the characterization is somewhat sentimentalized, portraying Bobby as less "ruthless" than he actually was, thus missing some of his complexity. The film alludes only briefly to RFK's plotting against Castro, which continued even after the missile crisis, and while emphasizing his gradual dovishness, it does not include his rash suggestion early in the crisis that the U.S. stage a provocation, "[Y]ou know, sink the Maine again or something."

 

Both actors playing Kennedys act rings around the nominal star, Kevin Costner, who affects a laughably bad Kennedy accent as the president's appointment secretary, Kenneth O'Donnell. Costner doesn’t seem to realize that a Kennedy accent, which has strong traces of England, is not the same as a Boston Irish accent. Despite Costner's efforts to be relatively self-effacing, his star power imbalances the film, since his O'Donnell is basically a glorified courtier. But it was only Costner's clout as star and producer that made this film possible. (The unofficial sequel to Thirteen Days has already been made, and it also stars Costner -- Oliver Stone's JFK. Maybe next he can play George H. W. Bush in the prequel, The Bay of Pigs.)

 

Thirteen Days screenwriter David Self ably edited the riveting dialogue derived from the 1997 book of transcripts of the White House deliberations, The Kennedy Tapes, edited by Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow. Unfortunately, that marvelous book is given ungenerous acknowledgment in microscopic type near the close of the end credits (the film's title is cribbed from RFK's posthumously published book on the crisis, on which The Missiles of October was based).

 

Director Roger Donaldson, an Australian who began his filmmaking career in New Zealand, is not seduced by any American flag-waving rhetoric, and he vividly depicts the ominous military preparations for an invasion of Cuba, an element unseen in Missiles. But Thirteen Days, for all its aura of authenticity, misses the ultimate point of the crisis. The filmmakers went eyeball to eyeball with some of the darkest truths about modern American history -- and they blinked.

 

The strange decision to tell the story from O'Donnell's viewpoint led Kennedy speechwriter Theodore Sorensen to mock Thirteen Days as "Kenny O’Donnell saving the world." Journalist and Kennedy confidant Ben Bradlee described Costner's heart-tugging portrayal of Kenneth O'Donnell as "exaggerated and fictionalized. To me, he was the enforcer, he kept everyone in line. He was a tough guy and totally loyal servant and friend." It's significant that the more convivial Kennedy aide Dave Powers, JFK's closest friend and O'Donnell's collaborator on the 1972 memoir Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, is not portrayed in the film, for Costner's character resembles a combination of Powers and O'Donnell.

 

I find it hard to accept O'Donnell as a loyal, sympathetic figure because I can't overlook his role in covering up the truth about Kennedy's assassination. O'Donnell and Powers were riding in the Secret Service followup car behind JFK's limousine in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Asked by Warren Commission assistant counsel Arlen Specter for his "reaction as to the source of the shots," O'Donnell testified cryptically, "My reaction in part is reconstruction -- is that they came from the right rear. That would be my best judgment."  However, House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill revealed in his 1987 autobiography, Man of the House, that O'Donnell and Powers told him they heard two shots from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll in front of the president.

 

O'Donnell explained to O'Neill, "I told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn't have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to. I just didn’t want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the [Kennedy] family." Powers more truthfully told the commission, "My first impression was that the shots came from the right and overhead, but I also had a fleeting impression that the noise appeared to come from the front in the area of the triple overpass. This may have resulted from my feeling, when I looked forward toward the overpass, that we might have ridden into an ambush."

 

Thirteen Days is most valuable for reopening for a wide audience the question of civilian control of the military, a topic as important today as it was in 1962. The heart of the film is JFK's confrontation with his Joint Chiefs, particularly General Curtis LeMay, the madman who at the time was U.S. Air Force chief of staff. Not content with incinerating cities in Germany and Japan during World War II, LeMay subsequently headed the Strategic Air Command and wanted to launch a preemptive nuclear attack against the USSR. He helped inspire not one but two characters in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove, Sterling Hayden's General Jack D. Ripper and George C. Scott's General Buck Turgidson.

 

The most stunning revelation in The Kennedy Tapes is the exchange between LeMay and JFK on October 19, which is recreated on screen. The insubordinate general angrily reminded Kennedy that "we made pretty strong statements about the [unclear] Cuba, that we would take action against offensive weapons. I think that a blockade, and political talk, would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this. And I'm sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way, too. You're in a pretty bad fix, Mr. President."

 

Kennedy responded incredulously, "What did you say?"

 

LeMay repeated, "You’re in a pretty bad fix."

 

The Kennedy Tapes reports that Kennedy then made "an unclear, joking, reply." According to RFK’s Thirteen Days, which incorrectly ascribes LeMay's remark to another general, the president retorted, "You are in it with me." The film's JFK says, "Well, maybe you haven't noticed you're in it with me." The departing LeMay (played by Kevin Conway) fumes, "Those goddam Kennedys are gonna destroy this country if we don't do something about this." No wonder the actual President Kennedy worried at one point in that crisis, "Suppose Khrushchev has the same degree of control over his forces as I have over mine?"

 

Khrushchev's own anxiety over the situation, expressed in his moving letter to Kennedy on October 26, receives insufficient emphasis in the film. The Soviet leader wrote: "If you have not lost command of yourself and realize clearly what this could lead to, then, Mr. President, you and I should not now pull on the ends of the rope in which you have tied a knot of war, because the harder you and I pull, the tighter the knot will become. And a time may come when this knot is tied so tight that the person who tied it is no longer capable of untying it, and then the knot will have to be cut. What that would mean I need not explain to you, because you yourself understand perfectly what dread forces our two countries possess."

 

Secretary of State Dean Rusk's famous comment, "We are eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked," referred to the Soviets, but he could have been describing JFK's relationship with the Chiefs. After Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a secret deal to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey and a promise not to invade Cuba, Kennedy wrote him, "I think that you and I, with our heavy responsibilities for the maintenance of peace, were aware that developments were approaching a point where events could have become unmanageable."

 

The turning point of the crisis was Robert Kennedy's meeting with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on October 27, delivering an ultimatum from the president while offering the other terms as olive branches. As reported by Khrushchev in his 1970 autobiography Khrushchev Remembers, the scene was considerably more dramatic than the one in the film, which chickens out at this critical moment of revelation by having Dobrynin, not RFK, bring up that some in the U.S. military "wish for war."

 

According to Khrushchev, what RFK told Dobrynin was: "The President is in a grave situation, and he does not know how to get out of it. We are under very severe stress. In fact we are under pressure from our military to use force against Cuba. . . . Even though the President himself is very much against starting a war over Cuba, an irreversible chain of events could occur against his will. That is why the President is appealing directly to Chairman Khrushchev for his help in liquidating this conflict. If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army could get out of control."

 

Kennedy’s friend Paul B. (Red) Fay Jr., the under secretary of the navy, had a similarly chilling conversation with JFK in the summer of 1962. It took place the day after Kennedy finished reading Seven Days in May, the popular novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II about an attempted military coup against a fictional president. "It’s possible," Kennedy told Fay. "It could happen in this country, but the conditions would have to be just right. If, for example, the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness. Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back, but this would be written off as the usual military dissatisfaction with civilian control. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs, the reaction of the country would be, 'Is he too young and inexperienced?' The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation, and only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment.

 

"Then, if there were a third Bay of Pigs, it could happen." Kennedy added defiantly, "But it won't happen on my watch." He felt so strongly about such a threat that he regarded Seven Days in May as "a warning to the nation" and in 1963 allowed director John Frankenheimer to shoot scenes for the film version in the White House. A full-page ad for the film appeared in the New York Times on the day of the president's assassination.

 

The American public, unaware of the trade of the missiles in Turkey, generally considered the Cuban Missile Crisis an unalloyed Kennedy triumph, but from the viewpoint of the Chiefs it was a failure of presidential will, "another Bay of Pigs." Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recalled in 1987, "After Khrushchev had agreed to remove the missiles, President Kennedy invited the Chiefs to the White House so that he could thank them for their support during the crisis, and there was one hell of a scene. LeMay came out saying, 'We lost! We ought to just go in there today and knock 'em off!''

 

Some have suggested that the nuclear test ban treaty with the USSR in 1963 may have been regarded by military leaders as the "third Bay of Pigs," requiring a violent seizure of power to ensure U.S. superiority over the USSR. LeMay was not alone in his advocacy of a first strike. At a July 1961 meeting of the National Security Council, the Chiefs outraged JFK with a presentation suggesting that the rates of missile production in the two countries would allow a "window of opportunity" in "late 1963" for a "surprise" U.S. nuclear attack on the USSR.

 

Kennedy's most eloquent statement on the danger of nuclear war was his speech at American University in Washington on June 10, 1963, which Khrushchev described as the greatest speech ever given by an American president [in the postwar era]. Part of that speech is played over the ending of Thirteen Days. The original text reads: "What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on Earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. . . . Our problems are manmade -- therefore, they can be solved by man. . . . For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

 

Khrushchev was equally eloquent when he reflected to Norman Cousins shortly after the crisis, "What good would it have done me in the last hour of my life to know that though our great nation and the United States were in complete ruins, the national honor of the Soviet Union was intact?"

 

Both leaders paid dearly for their principled restraint. Khrushchev was deposed by his Presidium colleagues in October 1964, eleven months after Kennedy was murdered. Indira Gandhi observed, "Kennedy died because he lost the support of his peers." Those who continue to believe that a coup d'état can't happen in this country are ignoring not only the truth about November 1963 but also the events surrounding our last presidential election.

 

####

 

Excellent review/summary.

Choosing the famous Costner to play O'Donnell does strongly suggests an agenda of revisionist O'Donnell as much more important and even heroic historical characterization imo also.

Costner incongruously overshadows the very unknown Greenwood merely by his long career famous screen star fame and presence and that had to be intentional.

Despite this suspect casting imbalance Greenwood did a great job as JFK as you state. Better than any other film actor by far both before or after this film portrayal.

"7 Days In May" was intentionally prescient and promoted into production by JFK himself yes?

I do think our military does keep a secret overruling power eye on our presidents from time to time.

In JFK's term it certainly appears several of their top leaders wanted to exert this overruling action and more than once.

How JFK held his own against them and that type of action just enhances his legacy of world peace saving courage, wisdom and will leadership.

I think Trump's Chief Of Staff marine general John Kelly felt a strong concern about Trump's irrational and unpredictable behavior in this vein.

I would believe Kelly had many closed door meetings with his Pentagon brethren seriously considering and even formulating a national security plan to overrule Trump in case he actually tried to initiate one of his delusional power plays in the real world.

One thing is for sure and beyond debate...

JFK was constantly fending off power and control competition from his top military, rival political agenda and intelligence agency people to do things their way versus his way.

 And these competitor groups were using classic Machiavellian methods to undermine JFK in their efforts to swing things their way.

JFK ( and RFK ) also had Hoover to contend with. As well as Hoover's like minded and highest political gain power obsessed brother LBJ..

Throw in JFK hating segregationist groups, "Big Oil", the Mafia and hot-headed Cubans exiles to boot.

Who was left who didn't hate JFK and RFK to murder wishing levels?

Guess just average and more honest and moral working class citizens.

8 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Paul:

On September 17th, Lee obtains a tourist card good for one visit to Mexico City from the Mexican consulate in NOLA. Three days later, Ruth visits the Oswalds, and Marina decides to return with her for the birth of the baby (they leave for Irving on September 23rd.  On September 25th, Oswald collects an unemployment check of $33.  He (somehow) returns to Dallas on October 4th with no job, no money.  At this point, Marina (eight months pregnant) is living in suburban Irving at the home of Ruth Paine, who now limits Lee's visits with them. 

My point here is, he didn't have much money.  And all of this happens in the space of just two weeks.  Strange ... 

Gene

One could assume that Oswald had squirreled away some monies from his past employment before Ruth Paine's visit. I don't know how long before Ruth came to visit and then took Marina back with her to Irving, TX. Lee last worked or where.

Maybe he had some side money paid to him from his leaflet passing jobs?

It would be importantly interesting to know Lee's income and expenses the last month or two before Ruth took Marina and Lee packed it in and took off for Mexico via Texas.

Of course he had to pay rent, feed his family.

I would assume also he didn't give Ruth Paine any shared expense help monies. He may or may not have given Marina any monies when she left.

Did Lee move out of their NO apartment without contacting his landlord about doing so? Did he stiff her for some monies due at that time?

As Gene pointed out, Lee had three separate bus trips to get to Mexico. He had to rent a hotel room while in MC for almost what, 4 or 5 days? He had to eat while there. Oswald did know how to survive the cheapest way possible however.

He then comes back to Texas. I guess his last bus from Texas to MC was a round trip one?

But another bus to Dallas was a separate expense.

Oswald still had enough funds to stay somewhere in the Dallas area before he got the schoolbook depository job did he not? He had to eat. He had to wash his clothes. Maybe get a hair cut? Take city bus trips. All this before his first TXSBD job paycheck?

Lee had a duffle bag full of his clothes and belongings that he brought into his North Beckley room according to housekeeper rent taker Earlene Roberts. Did he take this on his MC trip?

Did Lee stay at a local YMCA house before moving into the N. Beckley room and perhaps was able to leave his duffle bag there until he moved to N. Beckley? Was the duffle bag stored at Ruth Paine's and Lee somehow got it from there to his room?

All of Lee's daily personal needs belongings were in that bag along with clothes? It also contained his pistol.

Lee's last unemployment check of $33 picked up in New Orleans alone would not have covered Lee's travel and living expenses to Mexico City and then Dallas/Oak Cliff until his first TXSBD job paycheck.

It may be a simple explanation that Lee had socked away another 50 to 100 dollars somehow before he ever left to Mexico City. Lee was as secret with his money as he was about everything else.

9 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

Jim:

That 7-day period (from September 25- October 4) is fascinating, and the timeline telling:

1. September 20th: Nagell is arrested on 9/20/63, when LHO was still in New Orleans.
2. September 20th: Ruth visits the Oswalds, and Marina decides to return with Ruth for the birth of the baby
3. September 23rd: Ruth and Marina leave for Irving TX
4. September 25: LHO collects an unemployment check of $33 and leaves New Orleans (ostensibly by bus) where the Mexico City charade begins.  He allegedly takes three separate bus trips: leaving Houston early on the morning of the 26th and arriving in Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican border that afternoon; leaving Nuevo Laredo an hour or so later and arriving in Mexico City on the 27th.
5. September 27: Sylvia Tirado Duran (and her colleagues) spoke to someone calling himself Oswald on September 27. He came/left the Consulate three times that same day, persistent and angry, eventually being kicked out.  The imposter also visited the Soviet embassy the next day  
6. September 27th: Silvia Odio receives a visit in Dallas on Friday September 27th; two individuals along with Oswald, one named "Leopoldo" with an odd forehead (likely Bernardo de Torres) doing the speaking and seeking written letters of recommendation from JURE members. 
7. “Leopoldo” phoned Odio the next day to tell her how “Leon” had talked about the need to murder the President and that Leon” is “kind of nuts”, implicating the patsy. Not surprisingly, CIA did not allow the HSCA to later question de Torres (who later infiltrated Garrison’s investigation) about his activities.
8. On a Saturday morning in late September, two men visit Robert McKeown's house in Houston - Lee Oswald and a friend called Hernandez - willing to pay $10,000 for four rifles, 300 Savage automatics and a telescopic sight.
9. October 4th: Oswald returns to Dallas (after a failed attempt to go to Cuba and/or return to the Soviet Union) with no job, no money
10.  October 14th: Ruth and Marina were having coffee at a neighbor’s house, which leads to Lee's finding work at the Book Depository the next day

And as David Josephs has pointed out, from Sept 24 until Oct 31st, there is not a single FBI report on Lee Oswald.

Gene

 

8 days into Mexico?

Bus fares ( 3 ), food, hotel costs. A cheap knock off bracelet for Marina?

Was there any fee for his travel visa?

Then Oswald needs some funds to rent the room on North Beckley too? Maybe a YMCA just before.

Oswald got $33 dollars in unemployment just before he left New Orleans for this journey?

$33 would not cover those expenses.

One must assume Oswald had some extra stashed monies before he left for Mexico as well?

Did he let Marina depart with Ruth Paine without any money at all?

12 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

For a while I thought that might be the fellow on the right in the below photo, but I think he's already been IDd.

The other two are, L: The original MC mystery man, and, Middle: Nikolai Leonov

What the heck kind of bag and hand held item is the fellow on the left carrying?

and that guy on the right sure looks like Donnie J. Trump.

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Joe,

    Your post reminded me of Michael Cohen's claim that Trump initially viewed his 2016 Presidential campaign as an "infomercial for the Trump Organization."

Absolutely.

Trump's presidential candidacy run is so obviously a phony agenda endeavor meant only to keep his name and bombastic self-serving  spoutings in the national daily news to keep feeding his attention craving and never ceasing and never enough grift addiction going with this highly profitable easy money 10's of millions of dollars donation income scam.

Trump knows he would be blasted into humiliation kingdom come if he actually entered into the nationally televised primary debates.

Trump's bad personal and business baggage factor ( yet with no political background baggage ) going into the 2016 election primary debates was not enough to knock him out of the race combined with the other candidates having enough of their own that Trump's stink was simply less odiferous than theirs.

And Trump was riding his national TV character fame and name recognition exposure familiarity as well.

One can imagine however rival 2024 primary opponents going after Trump in those debates like sharks tearing into a hugely wounded and weakened whale.

Trump has the most negative political baggage of any serious Presidential run candidacy ever.

Scores of the worst and most serious kind.

Two past elections lost in the popular vote count. Two impeachments. 100 other crazy nation stressing and dividing antics including actual constitution violating and deadly violence inciting crimes.

Trump's White House legacy is already considered the most dangerously dividing, damaging and losing ones in modern times if not ever.

Even now, most of Trump's chosen and promoted candidates for political office keep losing election after election.

Trump is known now in his own worst nightmare self-image way he has pathologically feared and run from his whole life... that of "loser."  

One of the biggest ever!

In presidential primary debates Trump would be so ravaged by his opponents it would be cringing to watch.

Just my thoughts regarding my belief that Trump knows this probable primary debate scenario would play out and he has never intended to go through it. Yet, there is a massive breast/sea of capital and fame gain in playing his pretend game of running until then. And he will milk it as much as he can.  IMO anyway.

46 minutes ago, Simon Andrew said:

 I like your vids and input.

Agree.

1 hour ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Trump to run for President on a third party ticket?

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-article-third-party-candidate-white-house-2024-1234653812/?fbclid=IwAR2zpU9LpyVF82df30ItFnjPhvr-Ai_4uwldkg1k6oroQKyvTe1fb8wvQRo

Let us pray he does.

6 minutes ago, Ken Davies said:

The feds had no jurisdiction. Killing a president was not a federal offence.

Ken, that sure didn't stop the feds from absconding with JFK's body from Parkland.

Violating Texas state law in the process.

Curry telling the Feds "to back off?" I got this?

Ha. The FBI jumped in and in just a couple of days had Curry's DPD sending them all the important physical evidence. They took over in that regards.

The FBI took over so many aspects of the investigation. Questioning Marina, Ruth Paine and so many others.

Suspicious that the FBI didn't get the DOJ to take over Oswald's security.

After all, he was the main and most important piece of evidence of all.

You would have thought Oswald's security would have been their highest concern.

I always wondered what J.Edgar Hoover said when he first heard of Oswald being killed right inside the DPD basement.

He knew the entire case against Oswald and learning about JFK's killing was lost.

Didn't any higher authority above Curry, angrily call him in and dress him up and down for his greatest police security lapse in our history?

The FBI wanted all the evidence they could get...but they left the most important piece of all back in Curry's DPD hands... and it was destroyed in less than 48 hours in their care.

Tens of millions of average every day working class Americans were furious at the DPD for the muder of Oswald right inside their own building.

They ( me included) knew the truth of what happened to JFK was lost along with Oswald.

1 hour ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

That all makes logical sense Joe, I agree there's no reason he SHOULD have caught flack,  I just wondered if... people being people... whether Marrion ever fell foul of the "Well, if YOU'd stopped the guy in the bookstore.

Like you say, it would have been unfair indeed, but many fingers have been pointed in error over this case.

 

And the way Curry handled... well... pretty much everything... is worthy of several books worth of exploration.

Curry kept stating he wanted the press to see his department wasn't mistreating Oswald in letting the press almost unfettered access into the DPD building starting Friday night.

I always felt that was an oxymoronic statement considering the frantic chaos that the pressing crowd created inside the DPD.

Dallas PD homicide detective Jim Leavelle stated in more than one interview that the press crowd was so huge and packed inside the floors where they were dealing with Oswald it was ridiculous. Big cameras, cables strung out across the floor. You had to push your way through them to get anywhere. 

At one point Leavelle bragged how one press person was so bold he stuck his head between Leavelle's legs to get a picture and Leavelle gave him a kick so hard the fellow flew back against a wall!

Leavelle seemed bothered by the decision to allow the press into police business close quarters like Curry did.

Doing so allowed an armed Jack Ruby to infiltrate this press crowd. Ruby was right there when Oswald was brought out in front of the press crowd Friday night.

Now that's tight security?

Looking back, considering the importance of Oswald's personal safety, my common sense would have been to keep the press outside of the DPD building at all times. Too easy for such a crowd to be infiltrated by non-press people such as Ruby who did this twice.

So, Curry's constant stated reason to have the press swarm the inside of his building to see his department wasn't mistreating Oswald, perversely led to Oswald's murder right inside it!

Oswald probably should have been taken to a nearby military facility with a small army of security around him at all times. His security was that important.

Column: Closing out 2022, Trump has supplanted Nixon as the …

21 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

George Santos’ victory tells a sad story about the state of local news

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/george-santos-win-highlights-sad-state-local-news-rcna62849

 

“When Santos unsuccessfully ran for the same seat in 2020, he reported having “no assets or earned income.” For his 2022 campaign, the newspaper notes, Santos reported assets worth between $2.6 and $11 million and reported loaning that campaign $700,000. How did Santos go from nothing to millionaire status in two short years? There is no clear answer but we need one given that with this newfound wealth Santos largely funded his 2022 campaign.”

“According to The New York Times, after he lost the 2020 election, Santos worked in various financial ventures including one sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for being a Ponzi scheme. (Santos was not personally named in that lawsuit.) Per his congressional disclosure filing, he then created a company called The Devolder Organization that paid him a salary of $750,000. But according to the Times, that company had no assets and was thereafter dissolved for failing to file an annual corporate report. There must be an investigation to determine the source of the funds Santos loaned his campaign to ensure it was not an attempt to circumvent federal election laws, including laws that prohibit straw donors.”

 

This guy's been bought and paid for. The new Congress should refuse to seat him.

Steve Thomas

The guy should be out of office in another month.

Especially if anyone seriously investigates his massive financial gains in just two years, for sure.

I've never heard anyone mention Marion Baker being negligent at all regarding moving on up the stairs after encountering Oswald in the TXSBD lunch room.

He relied on Truly's assurance that Oswald was an employee and it was okay for him to be there.

And Baker's actions didn't result in Oswald's death.

Now, Dallas Police Department Chief Jesse Curry's ignoring concerns by fellow department personnel about moving Oswald in broad daylight ( versus a discreet night time one )  announcing to the public the approximate time frame of the move and allowing the basement area to be packed with shouting, bright lights shining including flash bulb ones newsmen just feet from Oswald was epic historic negligence worthy of criminal charges imo.

Curry's stubborn refusal to consider safer Oswald transfer advice resulted in an event that created unprecedented mass mistrust by a majority of Americans for generations regards their own federal government due to the most important piece of truth revealing evidence in the JFK case with Oswald's assassination being lost/destroyed ... right in his own building!

This mistrust ( rationally justified ) hugely damaged our society in many ways.

Knowing why Lee Oswald's survivors would not sue the DPD for their gross security breakdown negligence in Oswald's death for many reasons, still their doing so was legally justified.

Oswald was a "suspect" in their custody.

Not a tried and convicted perp.

Oswald's life depended on the DPD. His physical safety was the most important responsibility in their history.

It was totally their fault that Oswald was killed in their custody.

5 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

 

I never look askance at people who cannot see the sinister forces at work. I feel mostly sadness. I’ve read arguments that say folks like me need to be right, that we are attracted to the position that we see clearly where others are blind. Convenient way to dismiss the conspiracy minded. So many of my friends over the years have let me know that they prefer not to believe certain things because it makes them feel powerless. ‘What can I do?’ is the question often asked. Dr. Helen Caldicott called this propensity psychic numbing. 
What sees me through all this is that from studying history I’ve learned that this is nothing new, that power corrupts, that authority figures need to be very carefully vetted, which by the way comes down to one’s own desire to seek truth and doing the work oneself. History as we are taught it is full of lies, truth seekers have often been marginalized and worse. 
At its deepest level my desire for truth stems from empathy with humanity, and from wanting a better life. 
i also see that life on earth is beautiful, that friends and family take precedence, that the only person I can truly be responsible for is myself, that my behavior towards others is more important than my beliefs. It is not necessary to be detached from the horrors of war and poverty in order to live a good and meaningful life. It’s a gift beyond measure to be here now. 

Beautifully stated. So wise.

59 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Ed Curtin chimes in on Tucker Carlson debate:

https://www.unz.com/article/tucker-carlson-and-the-jfk-allegations/

I don't know how many forum members actually open up links provided by other members like the one Jim Di just posted above.

I certainly open up more of these links than not. I would hope more also do so versus not.

And the one provided above so coherently reflects exactly my own feelings and thoughts about Tucker Carlson and his recent JFK/CIA revelation news broadcast.

And one must wonder if Tucker Carlson reached the highest paid level national TV commentarial position his is in (and has been from a very young age) just from luck of the super competitive draw and/or being at the right place at the right time?

A talent too gifted to not grab and elevate to the top ASAP?

Or, did his father's positions and contacts and influence have just a little influence in his improbable fast track to the highest paid position in the national TV news commentary world?

If only I wasn't watching my old, grainy, continuous horizontal line disturbance, black and white screen, hand me down TV in my brother's and my bedroom Sunday morning, 11,24,1963 and seen Jack Ruby assassinate Lee Harvey Oswald "live" on national TV.

I was 12.

I had been watching every second of the JFK assassination news coverage since the afternoon of 11,22,1963.

I mean "every" second."

I had seen Oswald on TV since Friday night and he was the guilty party all right. According to all the comments from high authority sources.

Dallas DA Henry Wade...
I think we have the right man...with a "beyond a reasonable doubt" certainty.

DA Homicide Captain Will Fritz...
"THIS CASE IS CINCHED!"

Even at my young age I knew that the only most important person in the case was Lee Harvey Oswald. He was going to tell us all what really happened. Even if they had to beat it out of him!  Just keep him alive!

Lee Oswald was the most important criminal suspect in our almost 200 year long history.

He was also the most threatened one. Tens of thousands of death threats daily pouring in from not just the entire U.S. but all over the world!

I trusted the Dallas PD to keep this guy safe. The entire truth of the JFK assassination rested on keeping him alive.

Again, I was just 12.  However, when Oswald was first brought out from the elevator exit into the hallway leading to the press... I immediately had a sick feeling of intuitive dread.

He looked so wide open, I couldn't believe it. Just two guys on his side. Practically parading Oswald even a little in front of them?

I really felt that dread. He was just too open!

I once went to a "Howdy Doody" Buffalo Bob Smith appearance in San Jose when I was younger. They had three times the body surrounding security Oswald had!

Kids who got too worked up and charged at them were slapped away.

Then just a few seconds later..."BOOM!" Ruby whacked Oswald! Had him "wide open" for his gut shot!

Without thinking my body leaped off my bed and I stood there in shock yelling over and over..."NO WAY!" "NO WAY!" " NO WAY!"

I "knew" there was something way beyond simple DPD negligence or improbability coincidence wrong with what I had just witnessed on live national TV.

That was the birthplace of my life-long sense of serious suspicion and doubt about the JFK event and the later official finding that it was just a lucky Oswald who did JFK and same with Jack Ruby doing Oswald in defending the honor of Jackie Kennedy.

After childhood and adolescence, everyone soon learns the world is a great and often stark mix of good and bad, danger and safety, wealth and poverty, suffering and joy, war and peace, life and death, anger and happiness, abuse and loving nurturing, bad luck and good luck.

Generally, thankfully, in the industrialized countries the balance is almost always tilted in favor of the good to a degree that most live a relatively decent to good life when it's all said and done.

You think of the good much more than the bad. Of course that's the healthy thing to do.

Austin Barbeque restaurant waitress states Ruby, Tippit, Oswald knew each other.

DPD officer J.D. Tippit worked at the same restaurant.

Haven't read JM's "Into The Nightmare" however, wondering what McBride's take on this waitress was. She was employed at Austin's for 1 1/2 or more years. She knew Tippit well.

She says Jack Ruby was always trying to get her to work at the Carousel and one assumes as a stripper. She must have been physically attractive.

According to this former waitress her co-worker Austin Restaurant waitress Johnny Maxie Witherspoon was reportedly the woman J.D. Tippit was having an affair with. Witherspoon was married during the affair.

Ms. Witherspoon reportedly denied living on 10th street near where J.D. Tippit was murdered. This interview co-worker waitress stated in this interview that Witherspoon did live on 10th street. Who's lying here?

What an important witness to call to testify for anyone investigating Tippit's murder. But she never was? 

Joe McBride's comments on this Austin Barbeque waitress and her claims of seeing Tippit sitting with Ruby and all three together ( Oswald included ) at least once?

In 1974 we had Nixon and his entire staff and their Plumbers perp crew convicted of the most serious executive branch constitutional crisis level crimes with mountains of solid, rock hard, heavy weight and beyond a reasonable doubt evidence.

Shocking mind blowing tapes full of the most incriminating comments.

Directly involved staff turning on each other and confessing crimes ( live on national TV! ) to get plea deals.

Documentation regards "CREEP" and other illegal actions.

It took that mountain of evidence and public confessional testimony to prove the Watergate crimes and others and bring the guilty parties to jail term justice. All went to prison except Ford pardoned Nixon.

Here we have TC making a bunker buster bomb pronouncement regards JFK's assassination and the CIA that if true is a more important crime than Watergate. A crime that if investigated and proven true would rock our society more than Nixon and Watergate.

Since this charge ( if true ) is by far a more important American society effecting crime than Watergate...it is going to take Watergate level evidence and testimony to ever see justice done to the perps.. imo anyways.

Where is it?

So far we have nothing!    NOTHING!

Except TC's claim?

E. Howard Hunt made the same claim as TC ... on tape!

Yes, an end of life, barely able to speak and maybe son's interest helping circumstances one. Yet E. Howard Hunt was a true deepest imbedded insider!

And he gave names, dates, locations, motivations!

One other insider (Morita Lorenz) even corroborated some of Hunt's confessional story.

Phillips finally admitted to his brother he was in Dallas at that time. William Harvey had a weak excuse saying he wasn't. Hunt's own family could not verify Hunt's presence during that day. Frank Sturgis hinted JFK was taken out by more than Oswald. 

That's a heck of a lot of at least circumstantial evidence...more than we have here with the great and respected OZ ( I mean tv news commentator ) Carlson.

Decorated Special Forces Colonel Dan Marvin made a similar claim on video tape. He was ignored totally.

Long time LBJ mistress Madeline Brown told the world publicly and in her book that LBJ told her in a cursing rage that it was big oil and those damn intelligence renegades who did JFK... but, again she and her LBJ confessional story were simply made up as the spoutings of a financially scorned and attention seeking ex-mistress loon.

TC and his history shocking claim should be held to a standard of evidential verification as high and as strict as Watergate.

If it never comes to this or even close to this, do we then downplay this latest TC hugely redeeming praised, false flag, let down non-story? Where's the honesty and integrity line here?

Outside of TC's big news announcement...what do we have so far in evidence comparison?

The "one" whistle blower unknown and unwilling to show himself?

No tapes, no documents, no smoking gun hard evidence?

Now we're even having some here making sympathetic comments about TC's source never coming forward because he or she could be harmed? Career wise and physically?

This is all letting TC off the hook if nothing more comes to verify his shocking crime of the century claim imo.

I didn't get into all the immediate and over-the-top redeeming of TC of his decades of nation dividing and Trump defending democrat liberal bashing trash talk propaganda just over this one initial block buster news flash story regards JFK.

If TC's mind blowing, nationally reported JFK/CIA claim ends up being proven I would be shocked ...almost into silence which would be a first for me as a known inveterate non-stop talker and poster.

It all brings back to mind that old TV commercial..."WHERE'S THE BEEF?"

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I talked to Hemming on the phone once for well over an hour. He loved to name-drop and toss out stuff like it was a fact, but when you pressed him it was almost always what he'd theorized, or what he'd been told, as opposed to what he knew. 

I was also once involved in a project where I was to interview him on camera. In preparation for this I studied his official testimony and compared it against what he'd subsequently told writers and researchers and posted on this forum. And it was hard not to conclude he was mostly blowing smoke.

And yet, even so, he had a substantial FBI file, and was undoubtedly involved in some nefarious activities. So you couldn't just dismiss all he said.  

Agree totally.

1 hour ago, Simon Andrew said:

Whether you are a hardcore researcher or casual reader, the information you learn along the way via the research community can be a heavy weight.

It’s an incredibly dark topic. When you delve into the world of Angleton and Dulles, there is no light, it’s just feels evil.

Especially at this time of year, look after yourselves and don’t forget to love and allow yourself to be loved by your family, friends or trusty pet!

 

 

Yes, truly.

Thank you for this thoughtful and well-intentioned heads up.

9 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice work and sacrifice for that freedom" -JFK 

 

 

 

 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2013/11/18/jfk-lifetime-member-of-the-nra-defender-of-the-second-amendment/

 

JFK: Lifetime NRA Member, Second Amendment Defender

404

Remarkable find there MK.

However, I am certain JFK would have adjusted his thoughts and feelings after living through years of horrific slaughters with 1,000s of innocent lives lost by use of easy to acquire guns and rifles, especially large clip automatic ones.

And is that a cigarette Jackie K.  is holding between the index and middle finger on her right hand?

Got some great Christmas gifts yesterday!

I felt blessed as so many here in Calif. now are homeless.